Iron-Jawed Angels, a 2004 HBO film starring Hillary Swank and Anjelica Huston that highlighted the American women’s suffrage movement in the 1910s, will be shown at the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History in Springdale on Saturday, March 7, at 11:00…

Join the staff of the Arts & Science Center in Southeast Arkansas in Pine Bluff, along with Arkansas First Lady Susan Hutchinson, for a special event honoring the launch of the museum’s latest project, Heritage Detectives, on March 5. The…

It’s time to get excited about the Northwest Arkansas Naturals baseball season with FanFest from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 7, at Arvest Ballpark in Springdale. The first 500 people receive free food and refreshments; otherwise, the…

One of the largest festivals in the state dedicated to daffodils takes place in Camden during the Camden Daffodil Festival. This year the festival is set for March 6-7. According to Amanda Wunnenburg, Camden Daffodil Festival vice chair, the festival…

Film Crew in Texarkana For Remake of The Town That Dreaded Sundown

A film crew is in Texarkana this week shooting a remake of the 1976 horror movie The Town That Dreaded Sundown.

The late Charles B. Pierce, who was from Arkansas, originally directed the movie, which was inspired by a series of murders that took place in Texarkana in the 1940s. Eerily, the only description of the killer was that he wore a plain pillowcase over his head, with eyeholes cut out. Some might be familiar with Pierce as he also directed the cult Legend of Boggy Creek films that were based on a local legend of the state called the Fouke Monster.

As to the premise of the remake, the scary story centers on a rural Texarkana town that was stalked by a serial killer in 1946. The maniac was never caught, and in 2013, he comes back.

Here is the description of the movie care of IMDb: ‘65 years after a masked serial killer terrorized the small town of Texarkana, the so-called ‘moonlight murders’ begin again. Is it a copycat or something even more sinister? A lonely high school girl, with dark secrets of her own, may be the key to catching him.’

The film is being produced by Ryan Murphy ( Glee, American Horror Story) and Jason Blum and being directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon. The Town That Dreaded Sundown will mark the directorial feature film debut of Gomez-Rejon, who has directed several episodes of American Horror Story.

Four States Auto Museum in Texarkana. Photo by Kat Robinson.

Serving as the staging area for the cast and crew while they are filming in Texarkana is the Four States Auto Museum at 217 Laurel Street. The Museum contains a display of vehicles representing four-to-five decades of auto manufacturing along with varied auto related items. You can learn more about this neat museum at www.fourstatesautomuseum.com.

Some of the cars belonging to museum members are being used in the film. Robin Carter, who works at the museum, said they are using cars from the 60s, 70s, and 80s. The gas station that is in front of the museum is also being filmed in some scenes. So far, Carter said the crew has been filming from 6 in the evening to 6 in the morning. Carter also got to be a ‘driver’ in one of the scenes but said is was difficult because, “they made me run the red lights.”

The film crew will wrap up their visit to town this week and the movie, which is being produced by MGM, is scheduled to be released nationwide in 2014.

my granddad was with the arkansas state police and he and my grandmother and my mother and aunt lived in texarkana and my grandad told me he was one of many that work on the case…my mother and aunt was still young kid’s at the time